


Caught Feelings

by orphan_account



Category: Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Teen Crush, some texting chapters if you're into that
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-02
Updated: 2017-08-02
Packaged: 2018-12-06 10:02:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,077
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11598312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Michelle: hey loser where are youMichelle: is this a spider-man thing or are you actually sick?Michelle: i really need your help on this projectMichelle: peterMichelle: peterrrMichelle: i swear to god, if you're swinging around queens helping old ladies cross the street right nowPeter: i'm sick. may thinks i might have the fluMichelle: oh. sorry.A series of short chapters following the relationship between Peter Parker and Michelle Jones.





	Caught Feelings

Peter had known Michelle might figure it out, but he's still surprised when, after months of sitting in isolation at the far end of the table, she thuds into the seat across from him and says, "You were in front of my building last night."

 

Ned's eyes widen as he turns to Peter, whose cheeks have flushed red, his eyebrows peaked like her words had reached out and shoved them upward. Peter scratches the back of his head. "I don't- I don't know what you're talking about. I was-"

 

She glares and he trails off. "You-" she says, pointing at him with the floppy end of her french fry- "were in front of my building last night." 

 

"He was with me last night," Ned blurts out, and Peter gives him a look. "We were... working on a physics project. For physics. Oh, shoot, I said physics twice. Whoops." He tacks on a false laugh at the end and Peter smiles weakly.

 

Michelle doesn't spare him a glance. "Yeah, I'm not even going to dignify that with a response. You were in front of my building last night. You had a cat with you. A tabby, kind of thin. Red collar. Ringing any bells?" 

 

Peter opens his mouth, then closes it. Michelle smirks, knowing she's surprised him, and her glasses hang from the tip of her nose and her hair has been tied back in two messy knots and she looks positively—he stops himself and looks down at his own tray of food. What’s he afraid of? Ned knows about Spider-man, so does May. It’s not a dark secret. As far as secrets go, his isn’t too bad. But she's not a friend (or is she?) and she's not family, not like May and Ned. Maybe that's what he's afraid of: she doesn't know him well enough to mentally distinguish him and the person he is when he wears that suit. But he takes one look at her and knows she won’t treat him any differently. It hits him then, how protective he is of Spider-man, how much he’d like to keep the two sides of himself separate, how little control he’d had over May and Ned finding out and how he might have thought about maybe telling Michelle on his own, if he'd been given the chance. "I... I was at Ned's last night." 

 

"Come on, Peter."

 

Ned nudges him as if to say _Give up, already, she knows_ , and he sighs. "Fine. Okay." His hands turn bone-white around the edge of the table. "I remember. The cat, I mean." And he does. The tabby had been following him for who-knows-how-long when he first heard her padding along behind him. He turned around and she sat down on her haunches, looking up as if she were waiting for him to say something. He hadn't seen the collar, so he kept walking, hoping she wasn't hungry because all his money was in the backpack he'd left webbed down in an alleyway. It was a few minutes later when he felt her rub against his leg. Then he saw that dash of red tucked away between tufts of orange fur and he picked her up to read the address, figured out the best way to get there, and carried her a few blocks down and then to the right, scratching her neck and the space between her ears. A small, balding man in a three-piece suit found him at the door to the lobby and said he knew the owners and they were worried sick and he would take her to them and _thank you, sir, I know this must be below what you normally do but you've just made her family's day._  

 

Michelle puts down a fry and wipes a napkin over her fingers. "You remember the guy who offered to take her in for you?"

 

"Yeah."

 

"He's our neighbor."

 

"So, that cat...?"

 

"She's mine. Her name's Angelou." Michelle can't seem to both smile and meet his eyes, so she smiles at her applesauce instead. He feels oddly like she's shared some part of herself with him, however unwillingly. 

 

"Oh. Nice name. I'm- I'm glad you got her back."

 

"Where'd you find her?"

 

"I don't... actually know? She started following me at some point and I thought she was a stray, but then I saw the collar."

 

"No shit," Michelle says, laughing. "That would make for an awesome picture." 

 

Ned elbows Peter and mouths, 'How did she know?' Peter shrugs.

 

"Because you seem to think I can't see or hear you. I'm surprised the whole school doesn't know at this point. You guys really need to learn a thing or two about subtlety," she says, nodding to emphasize her point. When the buzz from the rest of the cafeteria begins to fill the ensuing silence, she pulls out a novel, sets her fingers on either side of the bookmark, and pries it open.

 

"Wait, wait! Michelle. I know you probably won't, but-"

 

"Secret's safe with me. Don't have any friends to tell, anyway." She lifts the book to cover her face and he half-expects her to retreat to her usual spot, but she doesn't. "Thank you, by the way."

 

"For...?"

 

"Angelou."

 

"Right. Um, you don't need to- to thank me or anything. It's what I do." 

 

She lowers the book to her cheekbones and glares, but this time her eyes are soft around the edges, like she's not as annoyed as she might appear at first glance. "Just say 'you're welcome', man. Like a normal person." 

 

Peter again flushes red. His fingertips seem to move of their own accord, tapping erratically over his lap. "You're welcome." 

 

"Good. Now don't talk to me." For the first time, he pays attention to the cover of the book she's reading, the bright, sprawling title: _Superheroes, Vigilantes, and Class._ He leans over to see the faces on the front, and Michelle puts the book down on the table. "You're not in it, dude. It's a year old. Just... eat your lunch. You need all that energy for helping old ladies cross the street." 

 

Ned snorts, and Peter's frown shifts into a smile. Sitting back, he plops a fry onto his tongue and watches Michelle as she bites back a grin. He thinks they might have said more words to each other just now than they had all month, and maybe, just maybe, her knowing might not be so bad after all.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed this, despite its brevity and clunkiness. I'm overworked but desperately wanted to write a Homecoming fanfiction, and this is the result of my initial efforts. It's largely unedited but I just want to go ahead and get it out there in case I don't have time once school starts. Thank you so much for reading! New chapters (hopefully) soon.


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